T4America Blog

Final House-Senate bill must prioritize the repair of our bridges and roads

After months of hard work and thousands of calls and e-mails from many of you, we’re close to finally seeing a full transportation bill reach a final vote. A select group of House and Senate members are negotiating the final transportation bill right now in a conference committee, and they have immense power to affect the final product.

Can you take a minute to tell your senators and representative to prioritize the repair of our roads and bridges during negotiations?

More than 69,000 U.S. bridges are structurally deficient and almost half of our nation’s roads are rated below “good” condition. We continue to spend limited transportation dollars to build roads we can’t afford to maintain — while our existing infrastructure cracks and crumbles due to deferred maintenance.

The Senate’s bill would make the upkeep of our roads and bridges a top national priority. Now we need to make sure that this same priority is adopted as part of the final transportation bill that will go back to the House and Senate for a final vote.

It’s urgent that the final bill preserve these strong Senate provisions for repairing roads and bridges, and those decisions are being made right now. We’re so close. Tell your senator or representative to to support these provisions in conference committee.

There’s no way to know how much longer these conference negotiations will go on — time is short to signal our support for the strong provisions from the Senate bill.